Mickle Center Shared Use Community Kitchen

Providing an affordable, state-licensed commercial kitchen for a variety of food entrepreneurs.

Ready for Business

The Mickle Center Shared Use Community Kitchen renovation is complete! The Kitchen is now a certified food establishment and ready for renters.

Renovated and updated with new appliances, the Kitchen is designed to meet the needs of chefs, caterers, food entrepreneurs, bakers, and cooking class instructors.

Interested? Contact Kitchen Supervisor Mary Kapler. She will lead you on a tour, answer your questions and help you with the process of becoming a certified and state-licensed renter.

Kitchen History

Formerly a nursing home, the Robert W. Mickle Neighborhood Resource Center now houses several small businesses and nonprofit organizations. For several years, the Center’s owner, the Neighborhood Investment Corporation, envisioned turning the outdated kitchen space into a vibrant shared use kitchen that would be available to food entrepreneurs in Des Moines.

NIC first hired an expert to complete a feasibility study, which targeted and surveyed potential users of a community kitchen and identified three primary interests: caterers, small quantity food manufacturers, and baked goods. In addition, the study indicated community interest in providing space and equipment for groups to preserve food for food-insecure families.

The Wallace Centers of Iowa completed a site evaluation for the project. Staff analyzed the information gathered in the feasibility study and presented recommendations for equipment and workflow design that will serve the identified needs. An extensive renovation started in 2016 and was completed in January, 2017.

The Wallace Centers of Iowa is the operational manager for the Kitchen.